Enlightenment isn't like graduating high school only to start college, or even finishing college to enter the "real" world.  It's the final graduation.  No more hunt, no more chase, no more battle.  Now you can go out in the world and do whatever you want; learn guitar, jump out of airplanes, write books, tend grapes, whatever.

The misconception about enlightenment stems from, or is at least compounded by, the fact that most of the world's recognized experts on the subject of enlightenment are not enlightened.  Some are great mystics, some are great scholars, some are both, and most are neither, but exceedingly few are awake.

    "But what about when people explore their inner selves?  Make journeys of self-discovery?  Aren't they going within to find the truth?"
    "They're just exploring the ego, making a study of the false self, which is a lifequest as valid as any other.  But you don't wake up by perfecting your dream character, you wake up by breaking free of it.  There's no truth to the ego, so no degree of mastery over it results in anything true.  Putting attention on the false self merely reinforces it."

I like happiness as much as the next guy, but it's not happiness that sends one in search of truth.  It's rabid, feverish, clawing madness to stop being a lie, regardless of price, come heaven or hell.  This isn't about higher consciousness or self-discovery or heaven on earth.  This is about blood-caked swords and Buddha's rotting head and self-immolation, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something they don't have.

Nirvana is an experience of the Unconditioned which defies any description.  Any description of Nirvana is not a description of Nirvana, and that is the most that can be said about Nirvana.  There are no reference points in Nirvana on which to base a description.

Many people have chosen psychotherapy over enlightenment.  Someone asked Anagarike Munindra, a great Buddhist meditation master in India, why it was easier for Asians to attain enlightenment.  His reply was that, "Westerners are doing psychotherapy."  

Paradoxically, as the mind becomes simpler, it can perceive greater complexity.

Developing the capacity for clear light dreams is similar to developing the capacity of abiding in the non-dual presence of rigpa during the day.  In the beginning, rigpa and thought seem different, so that in the experience of rigpa there is no thought, and if thought arises we are distracted and lose rigpa.  But when stabliity in rigpa is developed, thought simply arises and dissolves without in the least obscuring rigpa; the practitioner remains in non-dual awareness.

Ultimately we want to use dream to liberate ourselves from all relative conditions, not simply to improve them.